The people of Saint-Narcisse, Quebec, Yanni Gourde's hometown, packed 10 buses when they flocked an hour south to Victoriaville to watch the last regular-season game he played in junior.

He treated them to a show. Gourde's team, the Victoriaville Tigres, handed out thousands of yellow T-shirts to salute his 2011-12 QMJHL scoring title. Coach Yanick Jean wore one to spice up his pregame speech. Then Gourde met the convoy's expectations, eviscerating the Shawinigan Cataractes for a goal and four assists in a 7-5 win.

"Racking up points," Jean said. "That's what he was doing that year."

Offensive punch was Gourde's calling card a decade ago, when he bagged close to two points nightly as a 5-foot-9 overager who'd gone undrafted to the NHL. Gourde was used to the snub; no QMJHL club drafted him, either. From humble origins, he became a Stanley Cup champion twice over, pestering puckhandlers and scoring in the clutch as the Tampa Bay Lightning surged to back-to-back titles.

It was no surprise when Macklemore called Gourde's name in the Seattle Kraken expansion draft. Two months into the Kraken's NHL debut, they're several points out of the Western Conference playoff picture, but Gourde's fit in fine. Coming off summer shoulder surgery, he's put up 16 points in 22 games while matching up against elite opposition, rising to fulfill his city's standards as he did in Victoriaville.

"I think he's become a fan favorite already because of his passion and his tenacity," Kraken assistant general manager Jason Botterill told theScore recently.

Plenty of Kraken veterans have interesting backstories. Jaden Schwartz and Vince Dunn won the Cup with the St. Louis Blues in 2019. Jordan Eberle came close but never made the final with the Edmonton Oilers and New York Islanders. Once traded for Taylor Hall, former Oilers defenseman Adam Larsson signed in Seattle for a fresh start. Mark Giordano, the 38-year-old captain, just exited COVID-19 protocol and is 31 appearances away from playing his 1,000th NHL game.

Then there's Gourde, the Kraken archetype. His scrappy, underdog journey to the hockey mountaintop aligns with the identity the league's 32nd club is trying to establish. Namely: Be miserable to play against for 60 minutes, and don't let up.

"Nothing's going to come easy for us. We're not the most talented group. But we do have something in common. We work hard," Gourde said in a phone interview this week.

"It's been like that for my whole career: trying to be relentless on the puck, stay on the puck, do the right thing every time I'm on the ice," he added. "Little details of the game. Not forcing plays. Wait for your chances. You don't have to make the hero play every shift. Just being smart and competitive and trying to win every battle I'm in."

Seattle is 9-15-2 so far this season, and goaltending is largely to blame.

A low-event team that doesn't concede many dangerous chances, the Kraken have generated 49.18% of expected goals at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick. But their goalies grade out as the NHL's worst - by save percentage (.875), by high-danger save percentage (.766), and by Philipp Grubauer's goals saved above expected mark (minus-16.87) as measured by Evolving-Hockey.

Gourde's fared better in the role of jack-of-all-trades center. He plays 18:51 a night, second among Kraken forwards to Alex Wennberg. Like Joonas Donskoi, Gourde logs minutes on the power play and penalty kill. Like Morgan Geekie, he wins 54% of his faceoffs. Like Schwartz, he's among the team leaders in primary assists. He's drawn 10 penalties and taken three, one of the league's best differentials.

Twice this season, Gourde's scored in the first minute of regulation, both times by speeding into open space and teeing off from the top of the faceoff circle. When Seattle visited the Buffalo Sabres recently, Gourde's merciless stick-lift of Rasmus Dahlin cued up Carson Soucy's shorthanded opening goal. Later, his quickness and vision on the rush led to Schwartz scoring in close.

"What we've talked a lot about is being competitive in every game and bringing a work ethic and a pace of play. That's where Yanni fits our identity to a tee," Botterill said.

"He plays fast and he plays hard. He exemplifies what we're trying to build as an organization."

He checks stars, too. Kirill Kaprizov is the opposing forward that Gourde's faced most frequently this season, per Natural Stat Trick. Not far down the list: Kyle Connor, Leon Draisaitl, Alex Ovechkin, and Artemi Panarin.

Jon Cooper entrusted Gourde with heavy assignments when he centered Tampa Bay's third line, the turbocharger that helped spur two Cup runs. Last postseason, Jonathan Huberdeau burned the Lightning for 10 first-round points, but the Florida Panthers didn't score in the 41 minutes during which Gourde shadowed him at five-on-five. In Game 7 of Round 3, Gourde snuck into the slot and sniped shorthanded to key a 1-0 win over Eberle's Islanders.

Cooper was the coach who likened Gourde and his old linemates, Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow, to gnats, so irritating were they to play against. Back in 2017, when Gourde stuck with Tampa Bay out of training camp as a 25-year-old rookie, Cooper's comparison of choice was the Energizer Bunny, since he never stopped moving.

Botterill endorses both analogies: "I can't trump those," he said. They reflect the fact that effort is still Gourde's secret sauce.

"It's a message that we've (emphasized) to our younger players that we draft at age 18," Botterill said. "You look at Yanni: undrafted, but continued to develop, continued to work at his game to eventually get to where he is in the National Hockey League.

"It's a great story. So many kids who get drafted at 18, 19, they think it's done. No, it's still a long process. And, hey, we talk about Yanni's story so much to other players - young prospects in our organization."

When Gourde led the QMJHL in scoring in 2011-12, his 124 points were 23 better than the next guy's tally. He had a lot going for him when he left Victoriaville, Jean said: high-end skill, expert hockey sense, physical maturity, and the nerve to produce in big moments.

What Gourde's game lacked was more dimension. He played with an edge but rarely threw the body, Jean said. His interest in defense was negligible. In 2012, Gourde parlayed an AHL tryout into his first pro contract, but was sent down to the ECHL and skated in 336 games across both leagues before the Lightning called him up permanently.

"At the junior level, when you're dominant, you don't have to take care of those details. There are some guys who get to the pro level and they cannot make the adjustment. If you don't do it, someone else will do it, and he's going to get your spot," Jean said.

"The way (Gourde) plays now, such a complete game, it's really that he worked at it at the next level."

Early in Gourde's odyssey through the minors, he signed with the ECHL's Kalamazoo Wings, whose head coach Nick Bootland saw him tease his NHL potential.

Then a second-year pro, Gourde told his wife, Marie-Andrée, that the Kalamazoo stint was his last shot to carve out a living in hockey. He never had to activate Plan B. Bootland recalls Gourde arriving in tiptop shape, munching minutes on special teams, sticking up for teammates in scrums, and voicing his opinion on the Wings' breakout patterns and other Xs and Os configurations.

To Bootland, competitiveness became Gourde's "biggest separator" once he figured out how to channel his pugnacious streak. Jawing at every opponent who hits or bugs a teammate is admirable, the coach said, but it can distract a player. When that realization clicked, Gourde's relentlessness was a net positive on more shifts.

"If you find a player who's gone down to a four-letter league and then worked his way up to the best league in the world, he's really had to battle for that. He's not going to take anything for granted," Bootland said.

"That's the guy I would have selected (in the expansion draft), knowing who he is and knowing the passion he has for the game and wanting to get better on a daily basis. Who (else) would you want to lead your team?"

Kraken management agreed. Exposed in the draft because Tampa Bay protected four defensemen, Gourde was already gone from the Lightning in August, when he and Marie-Andrée ate maple taffy from the Stanley Cup in Saint-Narcisse. In October, Seattle tapped him, Eberle, Larsson, and Schwartz as alternate captains to Giordano.

Kraken coach Dave Hakstol has shuffled his forward lines this season, testing how new combinations jell. When Gourde centers Brandon Tanev and Calle Jarnkrok, Hakstol has praised the trio's diligence and pace. Gourde said he's enjoyed lining up with Schwartz and Eberle, whose compasses are oriented in the same direction.

"They want to go north. They want to make the right plays," Gourde said. "That's right into my game and right into my identity."

In November, when Gourde returned to Tampa to receive his second Cup ring, Seattle lost 3-0 in a reflection of the NHL's pecking order. The Kraken managed a season-low 17 shots against that lockdown Lightning defense. The literal silver lining: Gourde is a product of that winning environment. Down the line, Botterill said, he pictures Gourde passing on his workhorse habits and playoff wisdom to Seattle draft picks.

His no-quit approach, too. A few weeks ago, Seattle was shorthanded and trailing the Chicago Blackhawks at home when Gourde outmuscled Seth Jones in a puck battle. Gourde shoved Alex DeBrincat behind the Chicago net, drew a penalty when Jones roughed him, and dropped the gloves when DeBrincat sought retaliation himself.

TNT's cameras captured Gourde smiling as they punched each other.

"You can see he's enjoying being in the game. Enjoying being in the atmosphere in our building right now. Enjoying being a Kraken," Botterill said. "It's a pretty cool thing to watch."

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

These days, any number of deterrents could explain why a fan would decline to buy sports tickets. Having to sit in a crowd for three hours; potentially exposing their kids to COVID-19; paying top dollar to incur the risk while watching a bad team, a buzzkill in plenty of pro markets.

Everyone has their reasons to stay home, and those decisions add up. NBA and NHL attendance are way down from 2018-19, the last season in either league that COVID-19 didn't shorten. Through Thursday, 23 NBA and 23 NHL franchises were experiencing spectatorship decreases. Of those 46 teams, 27 have seen attendance dip by more than 10%. Eight clubs are down more than 20%.

These teams are spread across the United States and Canada, but all are playing indoors during a pandemic that won't relent.

The proportion of U.S. sports fans who said they'd be comfortable going to games indoors doubled between March and July to peak at 53%, according to survey data from intelligence company Morning Consult. But the trend cooled and that figure has stalled below 50% throughout the fall.

Outdoor attendance didn't boom in 2021; MLB's full-season total slumped to a 37-year low, partly because of capacity restrictions. Yet people seem warier about congregating under one arena roof.

"I watch NHL games every night," said Rodney Paul, a Syracuse University sports economist. "When they put the wide, pan-out camera on, it's like: Wow. There's a lot of empty seats. It's something that you don't remember seeing (before)."

What other variables are curbing crowd size? What can the leagues do to try to reverse the drop? To assess, theScore spoke to three authorities on the subject: Paul; Victor Matheson, a sports economist at Holy Cross; and Alex Silverman, who analyzes Morning Consult's sports survey data.

Their thoughts, which they shared in separate interviews this week, have been condensed and edited for clarity.

theScore: In your opinion, to what degree is indoor hesitancy - people not wanting to be in crowds inside - depressing NBA and NHL attendance?

Matheson: It certainly has to be a factor. The (infection) numbers are not great in the U.S. As much as the vaccines are extremely useful, they still don't completely prevent people from getting COVID. In a world where there are lots of unvaccinated people and lots of COVID out there in the general public, it's not a completely safe bet going to a (crowded setting).

A bunch of places have vax mandates to be able to go inside buildings. If you don't have a vax mandate, people are going to be more reluctant to go. If you do have a vax mandate, you're cutting out about 30% of the potential clientele at this point.

Silverman: Our surveys show that there's significantly less comfort attending indoor sporting events right now than outdoor sporting events. The share of sports fans that said they'd be comfortable attending an indoor sporting event is below 50%. That's a number that you can look at for perspective on how many people this might be impacting.

Paul: I've traveled a bit since (the U.S.) opened up and I've gone to different sporting events. I think there are areas of the country where you can still see hesitancy. Even if it's not mandated, you see people in masks at different events. Whereas other areas of the country, it looks like it did years ago.

According to Morning Consult's survey data, more and more Americans said they'd be comfortable attending games as spring turned to summer, but that trend has plateaued since July. Why do you think that's the case?

Silverman: Ever since the Delta variant came into the picture, that put a damper on people's initial hope that things were going to go back to normal.

Matheson: Here in the United States, we got down to about 10,000 cases per day on average by late June. That was all driven by huge increases in vaccination between December and June. I live in a county with about a million people, and we were down to less than 10 new cases a day. What's the chance you're going to run into one of those 10 people out of a million out in public when you go to a movie or concert or sporting event?

But thanks to anti-vaxxers who held out, as well as the surge in Delta, by today, we've got roughly eight times the number of cases a day. I went to my first movie in 15 months in June. I have not been back since because what was looking pretty safe in June is looking much less safe here in November.

How do you think the pandemic has changed people's habits and the way fans consume sports?

Matheson: The pandemic probably accelerated the long-run trend of people improving the ability to watch at home. I'm old, right? I remember my family getting its first color TV. You couldn't even see a puck on the ice. But nowadays, everyone has a 60-inch flat screen that's high-def and you can get every possible game from every possible league around the world live with a touch of a button - while being able to sit on your couch and not have to drink $13.75 beer, pay $25 for parking, and share a bathroom with 1,000 other people.

People had a whole year to sit at home and upgrade their experience. They needed to upgrade their internet anyway so they could work from home. We've just accelerated that natural trend to watch sports at home rather than live.

Paul: You get into these habits of being able to watch sports. You follow the home team, you look at their schedule, and that tends to set how you spend your Tuesday night at 7 p.m. But now, you might start to look (elsewhere) because there (were) no games on and realize, 'I like this action-adventure. I like this comedy show.'

There are so many entertainment options to choose from now. The world changed and the game was not going on, so (fans) looked for something different. Maybe they settle into that habit. The younger group, they might enjoy playing video games more than they enjoy watching the games. How do you deal with that as those fans get older?

The Carolina Hurricanes are a rare NHL team that's experiencing major attendance growth from 2018-19. The same goes for the Brooklyn Nets in the NBA. Both franchises drew small crowds a few years ago and now are at the top of the standings. Is that the most sensible explanation for why they're outliers?

Matheson: The Brooklyn Nets have added several of the best players, maybe in the history of the game. A team that improves itself on the ice or on the court may do enough to overcome the natural headwinds that all the teams in the league are going through.

That's obviously the Nets' explanation. It also could be that in some places, people are more comfortable going to games because of high vaccination rates or vaccine mandates at the stadium. A place like New York, where you've got a lot of excess demand usually, that's the sort of thing that you might benefit from. Even if you lose 20% or 30% of the population because they refuse to go get vaccinated, the remaining 70% of the New York City population is still plenty to be able to fill up that arena.

The biggest attendance losers aren't exclusively teams that are having poor seasons, but many of them are. In the COVID-19 era, how does seeing your team lose games reduce the incentive to go watch live?

Silverman: Elliotte Friedman, from Sportsnet in Canada, said something to the effect of: "This is a really bad year to be bad." Attendance is soft generally. The potential for a bad team to have attendance drop off is more significant. It'll be really interesting to see, in terms of renewals, how much season tickets are impacted heading into next season for some of those teams that are struggling.

Matheson: Maybe in the COVID world, having a bad team is even worse than in a non-COVID world. You might say, 'Well, look. I'm willing to put up with the risk of COVID to see LeBron James or Kevin Durant. But I'm not willing to do that to see a lineup of NBA second-stringers.' In a pre-COVID world, you'd be like, 'Ehh. It's a fun night out on the town regardless.'

Paul: The economics play a role there, too. The cost to be able to take your family to a game, or for two people to be able to go to a game, is pretty expensive. When you're having to cut back elsewhere, you may not go to as many games. If people don't have as much money and they're more hesitant to go out, (plus) the team's not very good, why would you risk it?

What could the NBA and NHL and their teams do to draw fans back?

Matheson: Support widespread vaccination. Spectator sports were among the industries that were most hard-hit by COVID. It's definitely in their best interest to make sure everyone gets vaccinated. Because that's how we all get back. I think vaccine mandates are probably a very positive thing for them. It makes people more confident to go to the games. It gives one more carrot to anti-vaxxers to go out and get that shot.

The more people who get the shot, the more COVID gets beaten back, and as soon as COVID is a minor annoyance in the background, the more people are going to be willing to go to these games.

Silverman: In baseball, you've seen things in recent years like subscription-style ticketing, where you can sign up (for a fixed fee) and go to however many games you want to on a monthly basis.

Some of these things aren't as easy as flipping a switch. But (teams are) trying to make the in-person experience more compelling when they build these new facilities. I was just at UBS Arena, the (New York) Islanders' new building. They're trying to incorporate more social spaces into the buildings to make it a more social experience; give you something that you can't get watching the game at home.

Paul: If you go out, you really want to be entertained. (The Nashville Predators have) musical acts in between periods. The first (NHL) game I went to in Vegas, it blew me away. It's that and focusing on having the proper customer service. Some minor-league stadiums that I went to right after they started letting people in misjudged numbers, so they ran out of different beverages and food items. I think that turns people away.

If many people drive to your games, you could potentially reduce parking prices in response to higher gas prices. It's different ways to get some attention and bring people back in.

I think it also is a feedback loop. If you go to a game and there aren't that many fans there and your team is losing and the atmosphere is not very fun, you're unlikely to go back.

Why should leagues be concerned if this trend persists? What's the significance of such a big, comprehensive downswing in attendance?

Matheson: Even in a world where we all have these giant TVs in our living rooms, even in a world that's dominated by television and media rights, teams in a league like the NBA and NHL still make around half, or maybe a little less, of their money from people going into the arena. A 10% or 20% drop in attendance means a 10% or 20% drop in that portion of their revenue stream. That basically means a 5% or 10% drop in (net) revenue. That's a big deal.

Silverman: The NHL is the big one in that regard. Maybe not quite as much now that they have these new television rights deals in the U.S. But it's definitely important for these leagues to have consistent, stable revenue from attendance.

We saw last year that people aren't as inclined to watch at home when there aren't people in the stands. You don't want to have a half-empty building on TV, either. I'd say those are the reasons it's important for them to right the ship.

Paul: With smaller sports and minor-league sports, it would kill that. You have to have people come into the arena to have minor-league sports be viable. Whether it's something like minor-league baseball spread across the U.S. or junior hockey in places across Canada, those are some of the most fun experiences I've had (at) games. But being able to get the junior hockey (TV) package, I watch those games, as well. It's the same thing: Tons of empty seats.

Beyond sports, spending in general, especially on travel and entertainment outside the home, remains down in the U.S. from before the pandemic. So sports aren't unique - they aren't the only thing people are spending less on. Should sports businesspeople be encouraged or discouraged by that?

Matheson: One of the real hard things in economics is that you can have an economy that's just as big as before, but if what we're spending on is different, this can cause massive disruption and dislocation and hardship for some people.

That all the ports are backed up and there are all these container ships waiting, that's actually a good thing because people are buying so much stuff. (But) we're buying different things. That's a hard world for people who run movie theatres and run live concert venues and run live spectator sports. Those certainly haven't recovered, and, in the case of movie theatres, for example, may never recover.

Silverman: There are some things that are unique to sports that the industry was grappling with even before the pandemic. This next generation expresses their fandom differently. (Gen Z watches) less sports in general than other generations. I would also say that the industry has never been more lucrative in terms of the amount of the money that the leagues are getting for media rights.

Overall, I think the sports industry is healthy. But I don't think you can write off everything to a general downturn in consumer spending.

Paul: Sports had a huge opportunity (when spectators returned) because it's something that came out of this that people were able to latch onto. We haven't necessarily seen that as a complete driving force.

Maybe it's not as bad as we think it is because (the problems exist) across the board. But there's probably still concern because you want to be back at where you were before, in terms of the number of people coming out to watch your games, if not more than before. You've lost that upward momentum.

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Early in his NHL career, Mark Messier hatched an offseason ritual with his brother and a couple of friends: Spin a globe and fly to where his finger landed. Messier's crew rode motorbikes in Thailand, drank psychedelic tea at a Barbados hostel, and left a German nightclub as the sun rose to jet straight to Ibiza. The summer getaways rejuvenated him - how else could he have played 25 seasons? - and taught him things about the world.

"I was interested in the way people live. I was interested in different cultures and different ways of life and different practices and different spiritualities," Messier said. "I loved the adventure of the travel, but I also loved the education."

Messier reminisces about these trips in his new memoir, "No One Wins Alone," published Tuesday, which he wrote with sportscaster Jimmy Roberts. Elected to the Hall of Fame as soon as he became eligible in 2007, Messier remains hockey's consummate leader and power center. Few players scored and won so often. Between 1984 and 1990, he helped deliver five Stanley Cups to the Edmonton Oilers, the last of them after Wayne Gretzky was traded. In 1994, Messier captained the New York Rangers to their first title in 54 years.

His No. 11 is retired in Edmonton and Manhattan. Only Gretzky and Jaromir Jagr tallied more career points than his 1,887. He ranks third in games played (1,756) behind Patrick Marleau and Gordie Howe, the latter of whom Messier faced in the World Hockey Association when he was 17 and Howe was 51. Howe wheeling around the ice pregame, Messier wrote in his memoir, was the only sight in hockey that made him gulp.

Messier turned 60 last winter, and be it in print or on TV, he has memories, opinions, and wisdom to share. The book comes out two weeks into Messier's debut as a studio analyst at ESPN, the NHL's new lead U.S. broadcast partner. He's in the legend's chair that Gretzky similarly occupies at TNT, breaking down the game they used to dominate together.

Messier's travels, for business and for pleasure, have shaped his outlook on how to live and lead. He thinks that curiosity is powerful, that new and varied experiences enrich how people understand themselves. Within a team, Messier wrote, continuity and connectivity make winning possible. So does having leaders who inspire - players who preach selflessness to the rest of the group and then walk the talk.

"The overall purpose of writing the book was to give some insight into how powerful of an experience I had playing on a team," Messier said.

Messier spoke to theScore about a range of topics, including his TV job; the value of emotion, glue guys, and fall costume parties; and what he regrets about his late-career stint with the Vancouver Canucks. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

theScore: Broadly speaking, this book is about your career, about teamwork, and about your perspective on leadership. How would you define leadership in the NHL? In a dressing room, within a team, what is it that the best leaders do?

Messier: Leadership is so multifaceted. There are so many levels of leadership. Dealing with people. Getting people to believe in themselves. Setting an example. Being able to give correction without resentment. Establishing relationships.

It's one thing to go out on the ice and be a good hockey player and lead by example. There are just so many different elements of leadership that are important at the professional level because we're talking about livelihoods. We're talking about security for families. We're talking about the upheaval of families being traded if things don't go well. There's a huge responsibility. I don't think it should be heaped on some young player just because they're a good hockey player.

You won six Stanley Cups as a player.

I like to say we won six Stanley Cups. (Laughs)

Absolutely. One of your insights about winning struck me. A lot of players talk about the importance of staying even-keeled, of avoiding highs and lows. You believe the opposite: that you should feel high when you win and low when you lose. Why do you think that?

Hockey, and I think most sports, or anything you do with passion, is about emotion. You have to play the game with intensity. With that, there's going to be a fluctuation of state of mind. You're disappointed that you didn't play well. You're disappointed that you lost. You're disappointed that you made a mistake. You're disappointed that you made a decision off the ice that affected the team. And you're absolutely fired up and elated when you win - or when you played a great game, you scored a big goal, you made a great decision, you helped a teammate.

The ups and downs of a professional hockey player, it's not a flat-line sport. To try to quell that (emotion) is counterproductive, in my opinion.

Which of your championship journeys do you think about the most?

Now that I've been retired 17 years - 60 years old and thinking back on my career - it's all about the great and fun moments that we had in the dressing room. Those pressure-packed situations: We're in a 20-by-20 foot dressing room staring at each other before we take the ice. Getting dressed at the hotel in New York City and getting on a bus, walking out onto Park Avenue with our equipment on to go to practice.

The journey is the magic ingredient. Of course, you remember the seminal moment of the whistle blowing and hoisting the Stanley Cup and the banner being raised the next year. But it's all the special moments along the way, and the heartache and the heartbreak, and the great, uplifting moments.

After our first Stanley Cup, I'm not going to say there was an emptiness to it, but there was a little bit of a pause (where I thought), a week later, 'Geez, we're not going to the rink. That's where all the fun was.' You know what I mean? Not basking in the fact that we won. Of course, here we are years later and we can really relish the fact we won the Stanley Cup. But it's a whole year. How difficult it is, and how much you have to rely on each other, gave (the journey) such a big impact.

The book is called "No One Wins Alone." To make that point, you note that on your star-studded teams, a lot of guys contributed to the team effort - to winning - from the shadows. Who was an unsung hero of one of your Cup teams that people should know about?

It's always the role players - the players that you think are expendable at the end of the year, that you think you can replace easily - who are sorely missed. Not only because of what they're able to do as a role player, but what they brought off the ice into the dressing room, on the buses, when you traveled.

Those are the galvanizers. The glue guys on the team. They're not easy to replace. We're going to see that in Tampa Bay this year with the six players they lost because of the salary cap. (Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, Yanni Gourde, Tyler Johnson, David Savard, and Luke Schenn all left the champion Lightning in the offseason.)

In the book, I talk about Mark Lamb, a guy who struggled to make it. Here he is (in 1990) playing between Esa Tikkanen and Jari Kurri. A journeyman who could barely stay in the league and here he is replacing Wayne Gretzky. You can't make that stuff up. He was such a great character guy and played such amazing hockey and was such a huge part of our championship team. Loads of character and grittiness and toughness.

Dave Brown - another guy who was an enforcer but was a huge part of our team (that post-Gretzky title season). I could list 50 guys right now who were important but never got the recognition they deserved.

I'm glad you mentioned Tampa Bay. To write about Edmonton's 1984 title, you brought up the experience and pride of the four-time champion Islanders and how hard it was to finally beat them. What do Tampa's opponents have to do this season to topple the champs?

(Tampa's) got the distinct advantage of having swum in the deep end now for a couple of seasons. When you win the Stanley Cup, it changes you. When you go back to back, it changes your knowledge of the game and how to win and how to prepare and what it takes.

Staying healthy will be a challenge for them. They're replacing guys that they lost who were great players, instrumental to their victories. Who's going to replace them? How are they going to bring (the new players) into the culture? How are they going to bring them up to speed, and (instill) the understanding and experience of what it takes to play in the playoffs?

It's not going to be easy. But it's not easy unseating anybody who's won a Stanley Cup.

It's remarkable what Tampa's done. Pittsburgh won back to back. A three-peat, history tells us it's not easy. There's been three organizations and five teams to ever do it. (The Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1940s and '60s, the Montreal Canadiens in the '50s and '70s, and the '80s Islanders.) It'll be interesting to see how that story unfolds.

Another belief you share in the book: The key to leading a successful hockey team is to throw a good Halloween party. Why is that?

When you come to training camp, you're super focused on getting acclimated to your team - even old players coming back again. Getting yourself ready for the season. It's a really intense, focused time for a team. You start the season with new players. You get through the first month of the season. (Halloween) always fell at a perfect time to let your guard down a little bit. Get away from the rink. Get the wives and girlfriends and the entire team together in an environment that's really fun and playful.

It brings out people's personalities. It's one of those things that you can all go back to the dressing room for the next couple of weeks and talk about. It's a team-galvanizing experience. Those shared experiences are critical to a team's success, in my opinion.

I want to ask about your arrival in Vancouver in 1997. You were named captain, replacing Trevor Linden, and you wrote that the way you handled the division in the locker room at the time was among your biggest mistakes in hockey. What do you wish you'd done differently?

Once you have a captain, you can't unseat a captain. It just doesn't work. I thought I was trying to do what was right by being a moderator (between cliques within the team). But in the end, it just wasn't the right thing to do. It didn't sit well with the fan base. It wasn't fair to Trevor. It just was a mistake. It was an honest mistake. It was something that I didn't do with any bad intentions. I was trying to help, but I was trying to help in the wrong way.

If I had to do it again, I would have tried to be in more of a support role for the players there and unify things from the rear. Leadership from the back is not a bad thing. It's very important. I had great leaders around me throughout my career. That's something I would have thought about doing differently.

You and Wayne Gretzky were born 10 days apart in 1961. You started in the NHL with the Oilers together. You wrote in the book that you're effectively family. Now he's analyzing games on TNT and you're working for ESPN. To what extent does that stoke your competitiveness?

I don't look at us as competitors so much. I look at us as a whole part of the ecosystem of the NHL. I think back to Saturday night at 6 o'clock, Hockey Night in Canada with Danny Gallivan and Dick Irvin and the great Foster Hewitt. Those people bringing the game right into our living rooms. I look at it as a chance to do what's been done so brilliantly for the last 60 years - of my life, anyway.

Hopefully, I'll be able to articulate some of the experiences that I had, some of the knowledge that I had, as a player. Articulate some of the challenges that the players face at different times. Hopefully, bring a perspective to the game that resonates with people.

What does it mean to get to do that at the same time as Wayne?

Our lives have revolved around the game of hockey. To have Wayne back in the game is great for everybody. To hear his perspective on the game, we're talking about the greatest, maybe, athlete of the century. The greatest hockey player of all time. To be hearing his insights, for me, as a fan, would be exciting.

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

A few weeks ago, Tera Black, the chief operating officer of the Charlotte Checkers, received a phone call from American Hockey League headquarters in Massachusetts. League brass had a question about the Calder Cup, which Charlotte won in 2019: "Are you guys planning on sending that back ever?"

The AHL championship trophy is 84 years old, and winners have repeated before, from the powerful World War II-era Buffalo Bisons to the Hershey Bears in 2009 and 2010. But no title reign has resembled Charlotte's.

The Checkers claimed the Calder Cup as the Carolina Hurricanes' farm team, and they now represent the Florida Panthers. They haven't played a game since March 11, 2020 after opting out of last season for health and safety reasons. Two-thirds of the team's staff were laid off, and COVID-19 stopped the AHL from awarding the Cup for a second year.

In a pandemic fluke, the silver bowl remained the Checkers' property - and they could call themselves reigning champions, give or take an asterisk.

Before COVID-19 and later when precautions allowed, the Cup was on display at fan events and backyard parties in Charlotte. The team's top hockey executive brought it to his beer league title game. During the season off, the Checkers printed T-shirts to celebrate their "three-peat," monetizing the irony.

The Cup was in Black's office recently, lying in a trunk within eyeshot as she contemplated everything that's changed about the franchise.

A roster that differs entirely from 2019 returns to play this weekend after 584 idle days. That amalgam of Panthers and Seattle Kraken prospects - the expansion club won't ice its own AHL affiliate for another year - visits Hershey on Saturday to open the Checkers' 72-game schedule. Finally, the champs are back, raring to defend a prize that none of them won.

"It's neat to be in a situation that will be reflected upon in the future as something that's historical. That will likely - and I'm knocking on every piece of wood around here - never happen again," Black told theScore.

"The Cup has such a storied history," she continued. "It's been really unique and nice to have it here in Charlotte for so long. It lets us continue the celebration into what seems like eternity."

The Checkers have played in Charlotte since 2010, when Michael Kahn, a wine and spirits wholesaler, relocated the Albany River Rats from upstate New York.

Before their Calder Cup season, fans elsewhere might have known them for losing the AHL's longest playoff game. Six hours and six minutes after puck drop on May 9, 2018, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms beat the Checkers 2-1 following five overtimes and Alex Lyon's 94-save masterclass in the Phantoms' net. Alex Nedeljkovic's 51 stops paled in comparison, and Charlotte bowed out of the second round a few nights later.

Backstopped by Nedeljkovic, the AHL's goaltender of the year in 2018-19, the Checkers bounced back to finish atop the league standings and reeled off 15 wins in 19 playoff games, coasting to the title. Morgan Geekie's double-OT heroics bounced the defending champion Toronto Marlies in Game 6 of the conference finals. It then took five games to finish off the Chicago Wolves in the title series.

Checkers captain Patrick Brown raised the Calder Cup first, and Black became the first woman whose name is inscribed on the trophy.

Like the NHL, the AHL paused its 2019-20 season when the pandemic started, but it didn't return in a protective bubble to crown a champ. To limit travel in 2020-21, 28 of the 31 AHL clubs played short schedules against divisional opponents. No league-wide playoff was held.

Charlotte retained the Cup without stepping on the ice. COVID-19 cases were peaking nationwide last January when the Checkers, Milwaukee Admirals, and Springfield Thunderbirds decided to sit out the season.

Charlotte's nearest AHL opponent plays eight hours away by bus, meaning the Checkers would have had to hit the road for weeks at a time. Rather than take on that health risk and play at home in front of zero spectators - a state pandemic mandate - the Checkers loaned players who weren't on Florida's taxi squad to the Syracuse Crunch, the Tampa Bay Lightning's AHL affiliate.

Layoffs thinned the Checkers' staff from about 25 employees to eight, and those left faced challenges, like keeping the ice frozen in Bojangles Coliseum, a southern home venue that opened in 1955.

With no games to prep for or attend, Derek Wilkinson, Charlotte's senior vice president of hockey operations, immersed himself in video scouting and studying analytics. The transition was jarring, just like when he retired as a pro goalie 20 years ago.

"Not going to lie: That first week after we decided not to play was well needed for a mental break," Wilkinson said. "But, boy, the days got long after that."

This all happened in the first months of the club's partnership with the Panthers - the teams aligned last September after the Checkers and Hurricanes cut ties - and as Black's business department tried to stanch the loss of incoming revenue. Instead of asking for refunds, most season-seat holders rolled their 2020-21 payments over to this campaign.

Indoor capacity isn't capped in North Carolina anymore, and with the caveat that COVID-19 is unpredictable, the Checkers expect attendance to rebound to past standards. In recent seasons, that's meant upward of 6,000 fans for each game.

"I think absence makes the heart grow fonder," Black said.

Just like in 2019, the Checkers plan to sell beers for a buck during Wednesday home games, but the on-ice product won't resemble the title team.

Andrew Poturalski, Charlotte's top scorer in 2018-19, now plays for the Wolves, Carolina's new AHL affiliate. Martin Necas has graduated to the Hurricanes, Nedeljkovic tends goal for the Detroit Red Wings, Geekie scored a goal during Seattle's inaugural regular-season game, and former head coach Mike Vellucci is a Pittsburgh Penguins assistant.

When the Checkers affiliated with Florida, Geordie Kinnear became the team's new head coach, completing the former River Rats defenseman's full-circle journey back to the franchise. Kinnear was an assistant coach in Albany, then in Charlotte from 2001 to 2016. He shuttled between Syracuse and Sunrise last season, working with some of the Panthers' developmental projects - young guys like Grigori Denisenko, Aleksi Heponiemi, and Serron Noel - who play for the Checkers now.

In Syracuse, Kinnear watched Crunch coach Benoit Groulx foster cohesiveness between Lightning and Panthers prospects, as he'll need to do for the Panthers and Kraken this season.

When Seattle general manager Ron Francis was the GM of the Hurricanes, he helped build the Checkers' Calder Cup lineup, fortifying his relationship with Black, Wilkinson, and Kahn. Construction continues on Seattle's AHL rink in Palm Springs, California, so netminder Joey Daccord is in Charlotte on assignment from the Kraken. So are Luke Henman, the first player Seattle signed; Cale Fleury, the brother of former Checkers blue-liner Haydn Fleury; and Kinnear's assistant coach Dan Bylsma, who won the Stanley Cup and Jack Adams Award once upon a time as Pittsburgh's bench boss.

"We're all very eager to help each other out, where maybe before (the pandemic) we were very competitive," Wilkinson said. "I think we're all a little more appreciative of at least being able to play."

Understandably so. On March 11, 2020, Charlotte erased a third-period deficit to beat the Cleveland Monsters 3-2 in overtime, the squad's last win for 19 months. To come back from that repose, the Checkers have needed to restaff their front office, restock the inventory required to run T-shirt tosses and on-ice intermission contests, and implement COVID-19 safety measures - from cashless sales to player testing - that are already in place league-wide. When the puck drops against Hershey, Wilkinson expects he'll feel relief "to see it again, to feel it again, to be part of it again."

Two weeks ago, the Checkers took care of other pressing business, shipping the Calder Cup to the league's office in Massachusetts.

During the Cup's extended stay in town, the team's doctors got to bring it to their houses. It traveled all over Charlotte and to parts unknown, Black said.

"I won't mention the name of the shipping company that lost it for four days," she added.

Possession restored, the trophy sat in her office ahead of the team's final shindig as champs. Season-ticket holders were invited to skate at Bojangles Coliseum on the last Saturday in September. Some snapped photos of the Cup before it was returned to the AHL.

"We've had a lot of fun with it. But at the same time, it will be nice, I'm sure, for the league to award it to somebody in June of 2022," Wilkinson said. "Hopefully it's us again."

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

In the surest sign that this NHL season matters across Canada, Pierre Dorion waxed optimistic. The general manager of the Ottawa Senators recently signed a contract extension, and when he spoke about the news, he asserted that his club has turned a corner: "The rebuild is done."

Even the Senators have playoff expectations in 2021-22.

Training camps are underway around the league, kicking off a pivotal year for the teams that briefly comprised the North Division. All seven have doubts to overcome or weighty objectives to fulfill. Ottawa bottomed out early in Dorion's GM tenure and fancies itself respectable again. The Montreal Canadiens just won three more playoff series than the Toronto Maple Leafs have in the salary-cap era. But Montreal's offseason was chaotic, and Stanley Cup finalists rarely repeat the feat.

On Friday, we'll cover why this season promises to be consequential for the Canadian franchises west of Ontario: the Winnipeg Jets, Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, and Vancouver Canucks. For now, let's break down what Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa are setting out to prove.

Can Montreal stay afloat in the Atlantic?

The North Division has disbanded and the Canadiens, fresh off charging as far as Game 5 of the Cup Final, must acclimate anew to life in the Atlantic. That would be the division that features the Tampa Bay Lightning, the NHL's back-to-back champions; the perennially good Boston Bruins and newly dangerous Florida Panthers; and the Leafs, playoff washouts who nonetheless played at a 100-point pace in three of the past four seasons.

The Detroit Red Wings and Buffalo Sabres figure to challenge for top odds in the draft lottery, so even if each of these heavyweights overtakes the Habs, they'd only need to beat Ottawa in the standings to contend for a wild-card berth against the middleweights in the Metro Division. Eke into the playoffs with a goaltender capable of greatness and victory is attainable in any matchup, as Carey Price proved in the spring against the Leafs, Jets, and Vegas Golden Knights.

Plenty has happened in Montreal since then. The Canadiens lost Phillip Danault to the Los Angeles Kings in free agency, Jesperi Kotkaniemi to the Carolina Hurricanes' cheeky offer sheet, and Shea Weber to a range of lower-body ailments that'll sideline the captain all season (and might force him to retire). Presented the chance to nab Price in the expansion draft, the Seattle Kraken instead selected AHL defenseman Cale Fleury.

When the dust settled, GM Marc Bergevin moved to acquire Christian Dvorak from the Arizona Coyotes, effectively offloading the draft-pick compensation he got from Carolina to plug a gap at center. Bergevin added Mike Hoffman and Mathieu Perreault up front and brokered a four-year deal with defenseman David Savard, Tampa Bay's main deadline addition in 2021. Price is expected to recover from knee surgery soon and Jonathan Drouin will return after missing the playoffs on personal leave.

Also back: Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, two of Montreal's three leading scorers in the postseason. They're the forwards who ought to anchor Les Glorieux for the next decade (barring any shenanigans when Suzuki hits restricted free agency next summer). But prolonging Montreal's contention window now is the priority, considering how many key players - Price, Savard, Jeff Petry, Ben Chiarot, Jake Allen - are into their 30s.

History suggests the Canadiens will struggle to mount another deep playoff run. No team that lost in the final has played for the Cup the following season since the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2009. The last runner-up even to reach the conference finals the next year was Tampa Bay in 2016.

More recently, the Habs went 17-11-8 last season against Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg, the Canadian teams they no longer face frequently. That's a .583 points percentage. Can they come close to matching that standard against Tampa Bay, Boston, and Florida?

Was Dubas right to keep Toronto's core intact?

Six players who dressed for Toronto's Game 7 defeat to Montreal in May went on to leave the team in free agency, charting new courses with the likes of Edmonton (Zach Hyman), Boston (Nick Foligno), Florida (Joe Thornton), and Tampa Bay (Zach Bogosian). Alex Galchenyuk signed a PTO with Arizona, and when Frederik Andersen joined Carolina, Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas signed Petr Mrazek in what amounted to a straight goalie swap.

Some of these departures were significant, but they don't represent the reset some corners of the fan base craved after the Leafs bungled yet another first-round playoff series. Dubas stood pat despite this fresh low, declining to explore trade packages for, say, Mitch Marner or William Nylander as they and Auston Matthews prepare to enter a sixth season together.

Nick Ritchie and Ondrej Kase were brought aboard to provide scoring punch, but it's this simple: Winning in the playoffs comes down to how the core performs.

Dubas deciding not to blow it up reflected his faith in Matthews, Marner, Nylander, and John Tavares, and the reality that Toronto needs them to deliver. Marner has to wait until next May for the chance to snap his infamous 18-game playoff goal drought. The Leafs might have ousted Montreal before Game 7 had Tavares not been concussed and suffered a knee injury in the series opener. But what-ifs are cheap when players of their collective caliber command 49.7% of the salary cap.

Is any Cup contender under comparable pressure? Maybe the Colorado Avalanche, who've yet to reach the conference finals with Nathan MacKinnon. Maybe the Vegas Golden Knights, who were massive favorites to beat Montreal. Maybe the Hurricanes, who've knocked on the door for a few years now. Maybe Pittsburgh and the Washington Capitals, whose superstar leaders are squarely in their mid-30s.

Those answers are all stretches, though; Toronto is uniquely stressed. The Leafs know well that this doesn't guarantee victory, but the path to a playoff run starts with winning the Atlantic, which should lock in a favorable matchup in Round 1. Matthews' comeback from wrist surgery and the reliability of the Mrazek-Jack Campbell netminding tandem are storylines to track in the meantime.

Is Ottawa ready to keep rising?

When Dorion succeeded the late Bryan Murray as Ottawa GM in 2016, he inherited a team that came one goal short of winning the following year's Eastern Conference title. Then the franchise's fortunes tanked. The Senators dealt Erik Karlsson and Mark Stone in a fire sale and went on to compile the second-worst record in the NHL between 2017-18 and 2019-20. (The Red Wings earned seven fewer points in that span.)

Finally, the Senators are out of the abyss. They got hot in 2021 amid Vancouver's late-season COVID-19 outbreak and overtook the Canucks by one point, finishing out of the North basement. The Sens flushed their 2-12-1 start and made genuine strides as the season continued. Ottawa played .561 hockey over the remaining 41 games - a league-average mark - and ended the year on a 10-3-1 roll. Progress!

The Senators were free of expectations last season; crowds were barred from Canadian arenas and the team's standings deficit was insurmountable by February. Spectators are about to return, and if they were inclined to generously spot the Sens another season to grow before demanding results, Dorion pre-empted this by declaring the rebuild complete.

The implication: Ottawa doesn't need more high-end prospects to complement the established core of Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle, Josh Norris, Drake Batherson, and Thomas Chabot. Tkachuk, whose RFA contract negotiations continue, led Ottawa with 36 points last season, which tied him for 85th in NHL scoring. The sooner these players boost their production a couple of notches, the smarter Dorion will look.

Improvement on defense needs to be coach D.J. Smith's priority. Ottawa ranked 27th in goals against last season, only slightly better than the prior three years. It's hard to see the Sens contending in the Atlantic until the blue line is equipped to trouble Tampa Bay and Toronto. Michael Del Zotto and Nick Holden were acquired as stopgaps, there to eat minutes until Jacob Bernard-Docker and Jake Sanderson make the leap from the AHL and the University of North Dakota, respectively.

Ottawa's best goaltenders last season were Anton Forsberg, Matt Murray's likely backup; Filip Gustavsson, who'll start for AHL Belleville; and Joey Daccord, whose play and expansion-draft exposure persuaded the Kraken to pick him. Murray ranked bottom five in the league in goals saved above expected, per Evolving-Hockey. If any Senator is embarking on a make-or-break year, it's him.

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Every story has two sides, so when Auston Matthews thrilled a Toronto crowd for the first time, somebody was bound to feel bummed.

Postgame, Erik Karlsson said the play touched off his most embarrassing two minutes in hockey. His Swedish teammate Niklas Hjalmarsson admitted feeling aged in the moment, even though he had yet to turn 30. Victor Hedman - well, take in what Matthews did to him on Sept. 21, 2016:

Matthews and his teammates were buzzing. Connor McDavid had juked four Swedes to set up Matthews' dangle, the Maple Leafs sniper rising from his knees to score later in the sequence. Johnny Gaudreau proceeded to sneak behind Karlsson, call for a breakaway pass, and turn on the jets to draw a penalty shot. Gaudreau missed high, but Vincent Trocheck forced a turnover on the next shift, and 95 seconds after puck drop, his backhand from the slot put Sweden down 2-0.

They were representing Team North America, the 23-and-under squad whose speed and razzmatazz wowed fans and staggered elite veteran opposition at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. McDavid was a second-year pro. Matthews was weeks away from debuting in the NHL. They connected at Toronto's Air Canada Centre as part of an unprecedented experiment in roster building: bridge the Canada-United States divide and combine prodigiously skilled players who might not otherwise have appeared at the tournament.

North America's lineup featured five No. 1 overall draft picks. It included future Hart Trophy, Art Ross Trophy, Rocket Richard Trophy, Vezina Trophy, Selke Trophy, and Lady Byng Trophy winners. Not that it'll ever happen, but the thought of this group reuniting is awesome:

As it was, youth unburdened Team North America of expectations in group-stage matchups with Finland, Russia, and Sweden. Five years later, people remember the World Cup for the referee helmet cam; for Team Europe's surprise surge to the final; for Sidney Crosby and Carey Price leading battle-tested Canada to victory. North America's run was unforgettable, too, even as it ended short of the knockout round.

"That might have been the most fun 30 days I've had in hockey," Trocheck told theScore recently.

"(Icing a 23-and-under team) allowed those guys to come in and just focus on playing," said Craig Simpson, the retired NHL winger and TV color analyst who called the 2016 World Cup for Sportsnet.

"There's no standing back because you've got Sidney Crosby or Joe Thornton, an 18-year vet, that you're trying to defer to and show a little bit more respect to. I think it allowed them to galvanize each other and say: 'Hey, what have we got to lose?'"

The 2016 tournament was the first World Cup since September 2004, when Canada edged Finland in the final on Shane Doan's winning goal and the NHL locked out its players right afterward. Bit of a downer. Teams North America and Europe, a melange of NHLers from eight countries, were added to the field in 2016 to generate buzz and raise the overall caliber of play.

Dismissed as gimmicky by cynics and traditionalists, these new entrants dared to play watchable hockey, exuding an enthusiasm that some marquee teams lacked. Canada's structured style stifled opposing offense and risked boring people. The U.S. went winless against Europe, Canada, and the Czech Republic after leaving Phil Kessel, annually a 30-goal threat, at home.

Tellingly, North America's forward corps included the NHL skills competition's two most recent fastest skaters, Jonathan Drouin and Dylan Larkin - plus McDavid, soon to be a three-time winner himself. Given a few chances to practice together in Montreal and Quebec City, the young guns thumped Europe in back-to-back exhibition games, and then they flew to Toronto for every player's first taste of top-tier international competition.

They took to the challenge, Simpson remembers, as if "shot out of a cannon."

"Get out there and use your speed to your advantage. That's the game plan," Trocheck said, summarizing head coach Todd McLellan's instructions. "From game one, we jelled and figured out some line combinations early. It worked out. The transition from putting a random team together to having a lot of chemistry was seamless."

Playing loose, Team North America pounded 50 more shots on net (138-88) than its three Group B opponents. The kids handled Finland 4-1 on Sept. 18, the day after Matthews turned 19. They lost 4-3 to Russia the next night, but dusted a few opposing superstars on the opening goal. Resisting Alex Ovechkin's slashes as he circled the North America net, Colton Parayko got the puck to McDavid, who escaped Pavel Datsyuk in the neutral zone and fed Matthews at the foot of Sergei Bobrovsky's crease. The ref cam recorded his tap-in from up close:

Against Sweden's vaunted defense, Gaudreau atoned for the missed penalty shot by slipping free for a second breakaway, this one 14 minutes in, and fooling Henrik Lundqvist with a sweet deke. Sweden rallied to tie the score, but toward the end of three-on-three overtime, Nathan MacKinnon was left alone by the Swedish net, stickhandled in a phone booth, and roofed a backhand over Lundqvist, relieving the goalie of his stick in the process.

Up in the Sportsnet booth, Simpson and broadcast partner Jim Hughson had already pointed out the lone problem: North America needed to win in regulation to reach the semifinals. McLellan and his staff didn't tell the players this, and when the Russians blanked Finland 3-0 the next day, they clinched a tiebreaking edge and advanced alongside Sweden at North America's expense.

"That was disappointing," Simpson said. "(But) I don't think it was any surprise at all that that group would be as competitive and explosive as they were back then. Because they still are today. Look at the names on the list. So many of them are at or near the top of the game."

No doubt about that. Five NHL seasons have elapsed since the World Cup ended, and North America's collective production has been prolific.

Different numbers contextualize how these players have impacted the league. Seven of them - McDavid, Matthews, MacKinnon, Gaudreau, Sean Couturier, Aaron Ekblad, and Connor Hellebuyck - have combined to win 16 major NHL awards. Twelve players, more than half the North America roster, are part of a team captaincy group. Brandon Saad was a two-time Stanley Cup champion before the tournament, and now Matt Murray is, too. Parayko won the Cup in 2019 with the St. Louis Blues.

Even though the World Cup is in limbo - the NHL and NHLPA failed to strike a deal to hold one last year - the 2016 tournament was the last true best-on-best event played on the international stage. Skipping the 2018 Olympics delayed McDavid and Matthews' chance to star for their respective national teams until this coming February. As many as 10 of their World Cup teammates (MacKinnon, Couturier, Ekblad, Mark Scheifele, Jack Eichel, Larkin, J.T. Miller, Seth Jones, Hellebuyck, and John Gibson all come to mind) ought to expect to join them in Beijing.

Their North America experience was unique, but Simpson sees a historical parallel.

He was Mario Lemieux's Pittsburgh Penguins teammate in September 1987, when Lemieux skated on Wayne Gretzky's line at the international Canada Cup. Lemieux was a dominant young pro before Canada won that showcase, but he returned to Pittsburgh ready to elevate his game even further. He upped his career high in points from 141 to 168 to claim the 1988 Hart Trophy, denying Gretzky a ninth straight win. Two Stanley Cups and two more MVP nods soon followed.

"He came back a completely different guy. He was around guys who were winners. Guys who have been champions. (He saw) how they respond, how they interact. To me, it catapulted him to be the greatest that he was," Simpson said.

"I think the young guys (in 2016) got the taste of each other and how they could bond together. How they could compete," he continued. "But they also got a chance to watch and play against the best guys in the world. Any time you get a chance to do that, it speaks volumes about the experience that you can gain, and how much you can grow and be a better player going forward."

Time to broach the inevitable comparison: What would Team North America look like if the next World Cup was about to be held? Forget that the future of the tournament is uncertain and get to judging the merits of players born in or after October 1997, a cutoff that mirrors the 2016 event's eligibility rules.

Here's one proposed roster and set of line combos. Sound off in the comments about the decisions you like and hate, and predict how this team would fare against the 2016 crew.

Six quick-hit notes about this lineup:

• Man, that right side of the defense. Fox won the Norris Trophy last season and Makar and McAvoy placed high in the voting, affirmation that they're redefining what it means to be an elite blue-liner. Fleet of foot, creative, and savvy with the puck, these defensemen are liable to dominate any shift.

• The Tkachuk brothers in the same top six? Yes, please. On that note, the Ottawa Senators' full first line gets second billing among this forward group, with Brady Tkachuk and Batherson flanking Norris.

• Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou, and Kailer Yamamoto were close exclusions at forward, as were Ty Smith and Noah Dobson on the back end and Jeremy Swayman in goal.

• As was the case in 2016, close to half of these players are 23 years old. The October birthday cutoff renders Matthews ineligible by a couple of weeks, but Matthew Tkachuk, DeBrincat, and McAvoy were born late enough in 1997 to be included.

• None of these players are teenagers - unlike in 2016, when McDavid and Eichel were coming off standout rookie seasons and Matthews was Team North America's lone NHL unknown. An impetus to win now squeezed Alexis Lafreniere, Quinton Byfield, Jamie Drysdale, and Owen Power out of consideration. Better hypothetical luck next year.

• For what it's worth, this team features 16 Americans and a mere seven Canadians: Dubois, Batherson, Suzuki, Dach, Makar, Girard, and Hart, who'd tentatively start in net over Oettinger despite his recent season to forget.

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

When the Seattle Kraken reveal their No. 1 goalie in Wednesday's NHL expansion draft, some people will inevitably compare that player to Marc-Andre Fleury. Maybe this won't be fair. Stanley Cup rings graced three of Fleury's fingers when the Vegas Golden Knights snared him from the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins in 2017. Fleury just won the Vezina Trophy and has led the league's 31st club on multiple playoff runs.

Pacific Northwest history buffs will have another reference point in mind: Hap Holmes, who manned the crease for the 1916-17 Seattle Metropolitans, the Stanley Cup's first American champion. That momentous season, Holmes was 29 years old and bald. The ball cap he wore in net guarded him from the tobacco that road fans spat at his dome. Powerless to dodge the juice, Holmes was agile and heady with the puck in front of him. Hap was short for Happy, and in life and in victory, a smile was his default expression.

"Where some goalers are spectacular, he was scientific," the Hall of Fame player Cyclone Taylor, long an opponent of Holmes in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, once said about him. "We always regarded him as a stone wall."

Holmes' netminding powered Seattle to glory the season before the NHL formed. In the Stanley Cup's earliest years, amateur clubs from Montreal, Ottawa, and Winnipeg hoarded possession of the trophy, fending off challengers that hailed from Rat Portage, Ontario, to Dawson City, Yukon. From 1893-1915, no American team played for the Cup, but in 1916, the Portland Rosebuds fell one goal short of denying the Montreal Canadiens their first title.

The Canadiens played in the National Hockey Association back then and Portland and Seattle were PCHA foes, battling the Vancouver Millionaires for supremacy of the pro loop that introduced the goal crease, blue line, and forward pass. The Metropolitans debuted in the league in 1915-16 as a ready-made contender, not unlike Vegas a century later. Some of the era's most fearsome scorers and all-around players returned to Seattle the next fall, nine men poached from across Canada to form what endures as the city's best roster.

Three stalwart Metropolitans - Holmes, Jack Walker, and Frank Foyston, the franchise's career goals and points leader - are in the Hall of Fame. Foyston's vision with the puck elevated his teammates. Walker mastered the hook check, whereby he'd backcheck and sink to a knee to dispossess opponents. Imitators spiraled out of position if the move failed, but "Walker never missed," author Kevin Ticen wrote in "When It Mattered Most," his definitive account of Seattle's championship season.

The 1916-17 Mets were coached by Pete Muldoon, 29, a regional light heavyweight boxing champ who preached speed and team play on the ice. Muldoon's club could irritate (winger Cully Wilson "played on the edge of rage," Ticen wrote) and dominate (Foyston and Bernie Morris combined to pot 73 goals in 24 games). Helpfully, Holmes was a star, too. He allowed 80 goals that regular season, or 3.33 per night - elite considering that defensemen often played the entire 60-minute game.

Operating out of the $100,000 Seattle Ice Arena - the Metropolitan Building Company constructed the barn in 1915 and inspired the squad's name - the Mets went 16-8 against the Millionaires, Rosebuds, and Spokane Canaries. 1916-17 was a lost season for the Canaries, who moved south from Victoria when Canadian authorities commandeered their home rink for war training. Seattle routed Spokane for seven wins, including 14-1 and 7-0 scores to start and end February.

When a dirty slash bruised his knee in the 14-1 affair, Morris ignored team medical advice to return the next game. By March 2 at Portland, the last day of the season, he was limber enough to score twice and clinch Seattle the PCHA title. Second-place Vancouver iced its own Hall of Fame trio - Taylor, Gordon Roberts, and PCHA co-founder Frank Patrick - but ran out of time to erase a narrow standings deficit and reach the Stanley Cup Final.

There, the Mets got to face the NHA champion Canadiens, who edged the original Ottawa Senators 7-6 in that league's two-leg final. Tied on aggregate goals late in Game 2, Montreal capitalized on an Ottawa goaltending blunder to book passage to Seattle, where the whole best-of-five Stanley Cup clash was to be held. The reigning Cup winners boarded a private train that same night, leaving the trophy behind to project that they'd retain ownership.

Concern that the cross-continent ride would tank the Canadiens' fitness was offset by the advantages the Habs brought into the final. On average, Montreal's starters outweighed Seattle's, averaging 183 pounds each to the Mets' 156. Habs winger Didier Pitre bagged a hat trick against Portland, and four goals total, in the previous year's Cup victory. Player-coach Newsy Lalonde was hockey's greatest pre-Original Six scorer. Between the pipes was Georges Vezina, whom Fleury's award is named after.

These legends rolled toward a city that, as the Cup series neared, "could do nothing but stop, talk, and listen to hockey gossip," Seattle Star reporter Edward Hill wrote. Once a 3,500-person mill town, Seattle became a destination in the 1890s as a gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush, Ticen noted in his book. In a March 1917 Post-Intelligencer newspaper column he unearthed, sports editor Royal Brougham described the magnitude of Montreal's visit: “Seattle will shake the dust of small-town sport from her feet and bust into big-league company."

Disembarking the train on Saturday, March 17, the day of Game 1, Canadiens manager George Kennedy paused to contribute to the discourse. Enlivened by Lalonde's presence on the trip - the NHA had cleared the superstar to face Seattle after he had been suspended against Ottawa for high stickwork - Kennedy predicted to reporters an easy Montreal victory. Rust from the journey might spot the Metropolitans the opener, he clarified, but the Canadiens would sweep the remaining matchups.

As it turned out, Kennedy was precisely wrong. Playing Game 1 under PCHA rules, with seven men on the ice per team (a rover included), Montreal shelled Holmes in an 8-4 win, netting softies that he was keen to avenge. That was the Canadiens' last triumph of the season. NHA rules governed for Game 2 the following Tuesday, but Seattle won 6-1, strengthened by Foyston's hat trick and the shutout Holmes preserved for the first 59 minutes. Irked, Lalonde butt-ended an official during a late skirmish, incurring an ejection and $25 fine.

"The poor Canadiens looked like a bunch of wooden-legged men on skates compared to the flashy speed work of the local lads," Hill opined postgame. Montreal defensemen Bert Corbeau and Harry Mummery "were at sea most of the evening," the Ottawa Journal wrote, wondering from afar if the Habs already were toast.

Game 3 confirmed they were. Down 1-0, Montreal squandered an early man advantage - Holmes lunged to knock a Corbeau one-timer wide - and resorted to playing reckless. Billy Coutu bashed Seattle's Roy Rickey twice, sparking a fight on each occasion, and Mummery was penalized 10 minutes for cross-checking Morris on the rush. Swamped by the Mets' pace, breathing heavily in the third period, the Habs conceded three goals within 1:56, permitting a hat trick from Morris this time, and lost 4-1.

Unchastened by the result, Kennedy filed a protest to have Game 3 replayed, claiming the officials erred by not allowing Mummery to serve his penalty after Coutu's elapsed. It amounted to a Hail Mary that Patrick, weighing in as PCHA president, shot down.

Game 4 on March 26 was Seattle's coronation. Spurred by an opening tally that Ticen termed "vintage Mets" - Walker stole the puck, Foyston drew two defenders, Morris took his pass and juked Mummery to earn a breakaway - Seattle got up 7-0 before the bone-weary Habs managed a token response. The Ice Arena's standing-room crowd was more excited than the players: "The superiority of the Seattle team was so evident ... that it lost interest long before the final whistle blew," Spokane's Spokesman-Review newspaper wrote.

In the end, the Mets won 9-1 on six goals from Morris, upping his total for the final to 14. (This remains a Stanley Cup record.) Foyston scored seven goals in all and Holmes embodied cool underneath his protective cap, having stoned all but three shots following the Game 1 onslaught.

As for the coach, Muldoon "achieved the pinnacle of his profession" before his 30th birthday, Ticen wrote. No younger bench boss has ever won the Stanley Cup. The onus fell to Montreal to send the trophy west.

The Metropolitans and Canadiens were tied in Cups when Montreal returned to Seattle for a 1919 rematch. This was the title series that influenza wrecked, confining several Habs to bed with the series tied 2-2 and killing defenseman Joe Hall four days after it was canceled. Hockey seemed insignificant, although Lalonde told reporters after Hall's funeral that Seattle would have won the decisive game.

Deprived of the opportunity, the Mets lost to Ottawa in the 1920 Cup Final, and Vancouver beat them for the PCHA title in 1921, 1922, and 1924. The Mets folded later that year when the league did, and the Ice Arena was converted into a hotel parking garage.

None of these letdowns marked the end of Holmes' hockey journey. Loaned to the NHL for the 1917-18 season, the smiley backstop led the Toronto Hockey Club - a forerunner to the Maple Leafs - to the inaugural league championship and the Cup. Reunited with Foyston and Walker on the Victoria Cougars, his name and theirs were etched on the chalice in 1925. Holmes wound up retiring with four Cup victories, the number Fleury's chasing with Vegas.

Holmes was 53 years old when he died in 1941. Thirty-one years later, he entered the Hockey Hall of Fame posthumously. In addition to Gordie Howe, his induction class included Jean Beliveau and Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, cornerstone players on many Montreal Cup teams to come.

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

The backhand sealed the comparison to Patrick Kane. Speeding into the offensive zone, Kent Johnson faked as though he would cut inside, wrongfooted his defender with a deke, and then fit the puck between the netminder's left shoulder and the crossbar. The goal, scored last December against the University of Minnesota, looped on SportsCenter. Johnson got texts likening the move to a Chicago Blackhawks highlight.

"That was obviously really cool for me," Johnson said. "I've watched (Kane) score that goal 1,000 times."

Keep in mind: Johnson, 18, is the least accomplished member of the University of Michigan's elite draft trio, three college freshmen about to go top 10 - at least - in the NHL's selection frenzy. Johnson hasn't played at the world juniors before. He wasn't invited to compete at the men's world championships in May like his teammates Owen Power and Matthew Beniers. But his skill pops, and the company he keeps is historic.

Three NCAA teammates have never been picked in the same first round. That'll change when the draft opens July 23 at NHL Network's New Jersey studio. Power, Beniers, and Johnson headlined a 2020-21 Michigan roster that brimmed with teenaged talent. Teammates John Beecher (a Bruins prospect), Brendan Brisson (Golden Knights), and Cam York (Flyers) were first-round selections in 2019 or 2020. Luke Hughes, another high-end 2021 prospect, plans to join the Wolverines next season, taking after his NHL star older brother Quinn, though not his other brother, Jack.

This'll be the second and final draft that the NHL delays and conducts virtually because of the pandemic. Scores of prospects started their junior seasons late or scrambled to ink pro deals in Europe. COVID-19 messed with Michigan's campaign, too; some games were postponed and the Wolverines didn't get to feature in the NCAA tournament. Still, Power, Beniers, and Johnson had time to test themselves against hardened upperclassmen.

"A few guys are stepping in right to the NHL, as you can see this year, right after college," said Jack Becker, Michigan's co-captain and an occasional linemate of Beniers and Johnson in 2020-21.

"It's obviously a good level of hockey. It's really impressive that they put up the numbers that they did."

Indeed, Beniers and Johnson were point-per-game players as freshmen, but the jewel of the 2021 class is Power, the safe bet to go No. 1 overall to the Sabres next Friday.

In a word, Power is trustworthy, that rare seal of approval for developing defensemen. Coaches tap him to kill penalties, spearhead offensive breakouts, and erase opposing rushes with his reach and nimble skating at 6-foot-6. Such was the case at Michigan and with Team Canada's gold-medal squad at the worlds in Latvia, where Power logged first-pairing minutes in the knockout round against Russia, the United States, and Finland.

Everything about Power's season impressed, NHL Central Scouting director Dan Marr said in an interview. Teammates and analysts alike appreciate the breadth of his toolkit, the crispness of his first pass, the fluidity with which he skates. Power has the vision in the offensive zone to tee up glorious scoring chances and, as Cole Caufield's Wisconsin teammates learned in February, the shiftiness in tight windows to create his own space.

"You don't see that a lot with big guys," Beniers said.

"Motor" is the buzzword of choice to sum up Beniers' game, evoking the energy that helps him conjure scoring chances and win battles over 200 feet. He seems tireless on the ice. ("Sometimes after a bag skate, you'll see him breathing a bit," Johnson said. "But definitely few and far between.") Beniers is the son of a Cornell wide receiver, Bob, who emphasized that his son should care about defense while coaching him in organized hockey in Massachusetts. Michigan coach Mel Pearson calls him a spark plug - the sort of forechecking, backchecking, playmaking center whose shifts swing momentum and sustain pressure.

Beniers is NHL Central Scouting's sixth-ranked North American skater, trailing Power, Mason McTavish, Johnson, Hughes, and Dylan Guenther. Swedes Simon Edvinsson and William Eklund are comparably promising. Still, Marr maintains that this segment of the draft is wide open, and Beniers could reasonably go as high as second overall to the expansion Seattle Kraken. To Marr, Beniers' blend of skill and sandpaper is tailor-made for the postseason, when checking tightens, and it reminds him of Jonathan Toews, long a leader for Canada internationally.

"I think Matty Beniers is going to be called Captain America," Marr said. "This is the guy teams want to acquire at the trade deadline going into playoffs. This is the guy who can make a difference."

Johnson is a natural center but rides shotgun on Beniers' left wing for Michigan, two dynamos reading and feeding off each other to monopolize possession. ("Wish I could have played with two guys like that in my day," quipped Pearson, 62, a former Division I winger himself. "I might still be playing.") Johnson is slight at 6-foot-1 and 167 pounds, but he's deceptive and strong enough on his edges to protect the puck. Except for Michigan teammate and Sharks prospect Thomas Bordeleau, no NCAA freshman recorded more assists last season than Johnson's 18.

Gifted with a quick release, Johnson also attacks with panache, completing plays that less creative minds wouldn't think to attempt. Like lacrosse goals. Johnson scored two of them in 2019-20 in the Junior A British Columbia Hockey League, making Ann Arbor his logical college destination. Michigan forward Mike Legg popularized the trick in the 1996 NCAA Tournament, and Johnson's out to duplicate the feat as a Wolverine.

"He'll pull the 'Michigan' off when we're messing around after practice like it's nothing," said Becker, who recently transferred to Arizona State for his final college season. "I wouldn't be surprised if he lands one next year."

Despite qualifying for nationals, the Wolverines didn't get to vie for Frozen Four glory in 2020-21. The NCAA booted them from the event the day it began because of positive COVID-19 tests within Michigan's testing group. First-round opponent Minnesota-Duluth got a bye to the next stage, where the Bulldogs stunned top-seeded North Dakota 3-2 in five overtimes.

It was a bitter end to a Michigan season that picked up as it continued. Pearson's club lost five of six games leading into Christmas but went 10-5-1 in 2021, outscoring teams 61-25 in those 16 matchups. Michigan ended the year ranked ninth nationally, and freshman growth led to world championship invites for Power and Beniers - a 17-day crash course on life as a pro. During Canada's gold-medal push, Power got to talking with starting goalie Darcy Kuemper and tournament scoring leader Connor Brown, and they encouraged him to play his game with confidence.

The trio needs to add strength to withstand the pro grind, Johnson especially. Pearson says he'd like Beniers to shoot more; he bagged 10 goals as a freshman, tied with Brisson for most on the team, but too often "tries to get to the perfect spot" before he releases. If the Sabres draft Power first overall, they might deploy him on the blue line out of training camp. Pearson hopes he'll return to college to refine his pivoting, defend with greater bite, and aim to dominate as a sophomore.

"We really see the biggest development from that first year to the second year, and then they're ready (to go pro) - whether it's Cale Makar, whether it's Cole Caufield, whether it's Quinn Hughes or Josh Norris or Cam York," Pearson said. "I really believe that second year is key in helping the transition to the National Hockey League."

Now that Caufield's graduated to Montreal, Power coming back obviously would boost Michigan's team aspirations, too. Big Ten and national titles are within reach in 2021-22, Beniers said: "We've got all the potential in the world." Bordeleau and Brisson will be second-year players; the same goes for Sabres goalie prospect Erik Portillo, who's set to start in net after recording a .935 save percentage in seven appearances last season.

Luke Hughes and incoming Minnesota freshman Chaz Lucius are teammates with the U.S. national development program. If they're drafted in the top 10 alongside Power, Beniers, and Johnson, half of those picks would be NCAA products or commits. Hughes is a superb skater and a few inches taller than either of his brothers at 6-foot-2. Less flashy than Quinn and Jack, this transitional breakout and heady drop pass proved he doesn't lack offensive juice.

Want flash? Draft Johnson, whose "SportsCenter" backhand against Minnesota awed Pearson with how easy he made it look. "Like he's done it 100 times before," Pearson said, which he surely has when you account for practices. By way of gearing up to imitate Legg, Johnson scooped the puck lacrosse-style in some Wolverines small-area drills, another memory that stuck with his coach into the summer.

"I think he got put on his butt a couple of times," Pearson said, laughing. "But that's OK. At least he's willing to try things."

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Under pressure seconds earlier, Brandt Clarke had flipped a high-arcing pass out of Don Mills' zone to spring Wright in open space, and now Othmann glided into view on his left wing, three future NHLers linking up to create a glorious chance. The OHL Cup is Ontario minor hockey's marquee tournament, the peak of a great 16-year-old player's progress through the ranks. Seasons, daydreams, and a three-goal Flyers comeback built to Wright feeding Othmann's forehand. Othmann rang the puck off the post and in.

Mistry mobbed Othmann first. Gloves and caged helmets flew as teammates raced to pile on: Liam Arnsby, Payton Robinson, twins Alex and Paul Christopoulos, beaming and screaming a few weeks before they'd each be drafted to the OHL. Don Mills coaches jumped and hugged at the back of the bench. The team trainer joined in, the number 74 emblazoned on the back of his black hoodie.

On the ice, one sentiment resounded in the throng: This was for Roysy.

In the stories his friends tell, Roy Pejcinovski is 14 years old and in motion, beelining across the Don Mills dressing room to blitz their conversation, prolong a joke, demand an anecdote be retold. He blasts a Drake song that booms in his Fortnite squad's PlayStation headsets. He plays the saxophone in music class, group-texting a video clip to hype his skill. He's smiling. He's the first person to say hello. His energy never dwindles. He's their go-to goalie, wearing 74 for his dad's birth year, making windmill glove saves from the butterfly, chirping when he stones your breakaway attempt, refusing to quit on a play.

In 2018, Roy Pejcinovski was killed in a triple homicide in Ajax, Ontario, east of Toronto. His mother, Krissy, and his 13-year-old sister, Vana, were the other victims. Cory Fenn, Krissy's ex-partner, faces trial this fall for three counts of second-degree murder.

Krissy, Vana, and Roy died during a Don Mills playoff series, the Greater Toronto Hockey League's Under-15 AAA championship - a footnote to the family's grief, but context that was central to Roy's radiant life. Some of his Flyers teammates have matured into top-flight teenaged prospects, among the best in the sport. Clarke, a creative defenseman, might go in the top five in this month's NHL draft. Othmann snipes from the wing and is another projected first-rounder. Wright, a complete center and budding NHL captain, is the consensus top player available in 2022.

Knowing and loving Roy enriched their hockey journeys and young lives, these players and fellow 2003 Flyers told theScore in recent interviews. He was a dressing-room cornerstone during formative years, when lacing up the skates at the highest level fortifies a brotherly bond. Roy caught with his right hand. He bailed out defensive mistakes. He made call-ups feel welcome in the room. "He wanted to be best friends with everyone," Robinson said. Memorializing him will be a lifelong effort.

"He stays alive within us," Mistry said.

"Hockey was his sport. Hockey was his love and passion," Wright said. "I'm just trying to go out every skate, work as hard as possible, and do everything I can for him, and to help honor his legacy."

To remember Roy is to talk about his drive to stop pucks, but also about video games, which brought out all sides of him. Confidence: Late one Friday night, Roy and a few teammates won six straight Fortnite battles, and he yelled into his headset that he was unstoppable. Fieriness: When the next clash started and his character was felled first, Roy turned off his console. Selflessness: Knowing his limitations as a gamer but ever fearful of missing out, Roy volunteered on another occasion to be his squad's medic, carrying supplies for the guys who sprinted into the fight.

Other interactions made it clear that Roy was wise beyond the years he was given. He struck up conversations with Clarke's septuagenarian grandfather, Tom, whenever he saw him at the rink. Outside a chicken restaurant in Detroit during a tournament there, he handed $20 to a homeless man and paused to learn his story. He phoned Flyers trainer Marshall Bacon to consult about math homework: "You know this shit more than I do," was Bacon's stance.

Agile and cerebral, Roy played basketball with friends outside Othmann's house - "Terrible shooter," Othmann said - but excelled as an athlete between the pipes. One night in practice, Othmann scored off a three-on-two and made a show of raising his arms, prompting Roy to shut the door for the next half-hour. Playing for the Toronto Marlboros at the Under-13 level, the season before he joined Don Mills, Othmann clapped a one-timer that Roy lunged to glove. Roy saved video of that robbery to his phone, ready to be aired in the dressing room at his leisure.

Roy was 5-foot-7 but played bigger in the crease, and Clarke swears this memory isn't rose-tinted: "I love him, but I'm not trying to pump his tires. He just was a really good goalie." He challenged shooters without losing his positioning. He poke-checked from the splits to spoil breakaways. He and Mistry once retaped a stick blade for a full sleepover, testing Roy's thesis that certain tape jobs conceal the puck. During one tournament, a shot bruised his catching forearm and Bacon padded the wound with foam, only for Roy, his motion cramped, to replace the foam between games with sock tape.

"Whatever you do," Bacon told him, "do not show that to anybody and tell them your trainer taped you up like this."

He was OHL-caliber, like his 14 Flyers teammates who got drafted in 2019. Wright went first overall to the Kingston Frontenacs, Othmann second to the Flint Firebirds, and Clarke fourth to the Barrie Colts. The North Bay Battalion nabbed Arnsby and the Christopoulos twins. Robinson joined the Sudbury Wolves. At No. 73, the Hamilton Bulldogs drafted Owen Simpson from the Toronto Red Wings, the club that Don Mills was fresh off beating in the OHL Cup title game.

The league itself picked next, dedicating slot No. 74 to Roy's memory.

The night before Roy died, gloves and punches flew at Victoria Village Arena, the Flyers' home rink, after Alex Christopoulos scored in the third period of Game 3 of the GTHL final. This opened a 4-1 lead over the Marlboros, Othmann's former team and a heated rival that took issue with Don Mills' celebration. Ten skaters brawled as the benches bickered and the officials decided who to penalize and eject. Flyers coach Marc Slawson and his Marlies counterpart, Stephen Dennis, were booted from the game.

Two hundred feet from the fray, Roy left his crease to retrieve the puck, dangled it a bit, and wristed the disc to the Marlboros goalie. They traded ice-length saucer passes as teammates seethed, then stifled giggles, awed by the sight of this peace offering.

"He was just making friends and having fun," Mistry said.

In the room postgame, anticipating suspensions from the melee, the coaches urged the Flyers to be ready to play Game 4 with a shorter bench. Clarke was last to leave; he told his goalie he'd see him tomorrow. The next day was March 14, 2018, Wednesday of the spring school break. Othmann, Robinson, and Wright went to watch the OHL Cup, the 2002-born age group's turn in the spotlight. They could sense people staring when Wright's and Robinson's dads pulled the boys into an arena conference room, bearing news that shattered them.

The coaches texted the Don Mills parents to say the practice rink would be open that night, and anyone who wanted could stop in. The whole team showed. Roy's seat was empty as the Flyers talked and cried and screamed and sat silent, probably for two hours in all, and then as they unpacked their gear to skate together, the most comforting action available. They'd seen him yesterday. They were 14 and 15 years old. This had to be a mistake. The world seemed to freeze. They turned Roy's net around so that it faced the boards.

Game 4 was postponed, but the Flyers and Marlboros returned to the ice that Sunday for a memorial exhibition. Rivals piled their sticks in the neutral zone to mix the teams, black jerseys versus white jerseys that all featured a burgundy R, the Toronto Star's Victoria Gibson reported. Goalies from around the league turned up to watch. They and the Marlies knew Roy, too.

When the GTHL title series resumed, the Flyers topped the Marlies in five games to progress to the provincial AAA championships. They won that competition, Clarke netting the overtime clincher in the final. The heartache of losing Roy stayed with them, and they talked about it with grief counselors, reminiscing about him in circle formation at the rink. Company made living with the trauma a few degrees easier.

"It was a sense of brotherhood," Robinson said. "It makes you feel you're not the only one who's lost this amazing person."

Krissy, Vana, and Roy are survived by the kids' older sister, Victoria, and dad Vas, the inspiration for Roy's jersey number. At a memorial gala later in 2018, they took the stage to a 600-person ovation, and Vas told the crowd that Krissy was the family's glue. Vana was his light, he said. Roy was his "best friend." The gala, Sportsnet's Michael Grange reported, raised about $200,000 for the Pejcinovski Family Memorial Fund, to be donated to charities that support women's shelters and youth sports.

Vas visited the Flyers throughout the 2018-19 season. He announced the starting lineup in the room. He watched his son's friends compete with Roy stickers on their helmets and "74" patches on their sleeves. In any GTHL dressing room that was spacious enough, Don Mills kept an extra stall open. Sometimes Roy would get so engrossed in conversation that he talked through the start of his coaches' speeches. Now his teammates reprised pregame chants that he'd been part of, pausing for four seconds during his lines.

Those Flyers were an all-time minor hockey powerhouse. They lost once in 84 games and cruised to the OHL Cup. Don Mills outscored its first six opponents there 35-5, yet got down 4-1 to the Toronto Red Wings in the final, deflating portions of the crowd but not the bench. As a shorter goalie, perseverance - battling - was Roysy's hallmark. The thought galvanized Mistry throughout the year.

Goals from Edward Moskowitz, Othmann, Arnsby, and Alex Christopoulos got Don Mills back into the game. The score was 5-5 late in OT when Clarke flicked the puck over a defender's outstretched hands to Wright. Othmann was double-shifting and gassed. He drove to the offensive zone anyway. Wright found him in the slot and he found the net.

Othmann flung his gloves and stick and unfastened his helmet, ready to be blitzed. Roy came to mind. The players shouted his name in the throng. They broke apart to wait for the trophy presentation, Mistry's privilege as captain. Robinson looked toward the bench and noticed Vas, that funny, gregarious, kindred personality of his son who buoyed the Flyers every time they saw him, the collective mood lightened by his presence.

"He looked happy," Robinson said.

Seasons passed and COVID-19 upended the Flyers' transition to junior. Rookie years were cut short by the pandemic's onset. The OHL didn't play in 2020-21, so Clarke and Othmann joined pro clubs in Europe. The drive to honor Roy went worldwide. Photos of him still hang at Victoria Village Arena in north Toronto; guys write RP74 on every stick they tape. Robinson has a couple of Pejcinovski jerseys hanging in his basement that he wants to get framed. Clarke plays pingpong with his brother Graeme, a New Jersey Devils prospect, and smiles when the score ticks to 7-4. On NHL draft day two Fridays from now, Othmann hopes to host Vas at his watch party.

This spring, Clarke, Othmann, and Wright headed to Texas to play at the Under-18 World Championship, three Don Mills kids shining for Canada - they combined to score 27 points in seven games - as their country charged to gold. In quiet moments at the tournament, they swapped memories of the '03 Flyers and Roy's antics, of quips slung and time shared. In Don Mills, this trio sat together at the far end of the room from their goalie. Maybe something funny happened at school that day, material to bank and laugh about with stallmates as they dressed for practice.

They'd look up and Roy was in the mix.

"He'd be screaming. He'd be having to know what we were talking about," Clarke said. "Having us tell the whole story over again."

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore. He can be reached at nick.faris@thescore.com.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

The NHL's North Division commands wall-to-wall coverage in Canada, but stellar hockey is being played south of the border in front of spirited home crowds, a striking change from the regular season.

On cue for Round 2, we preview the postseason's next slate of American series. Here's a rundown of what's at stake, and key storylines and battles to monitor, in the East, Central, and West Division finals.

East Division: Boston vs. N.Y. Islanders

Six points in the standings separated this division's first and fourth playoff seeds, and now a couple of the NHL's stingiest defensive clubs get to square off for the East title.

The Bruins are undeniably more dynamic; that'll be true until older stars Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and David Krejci fall off. And the team probably improved more than anyone at the trade deadline, adding impact contributors Taylor Hall and Mike Reilly at the cost of a bottom-six forward, Anders Bjork, and two picks.

Kyle Palmieri was a nice acquisition for New York, but the Islanders are dangerous because they trust and execute Barry Trotz's system. They're workmanlike, bunker down in the defensive zone to inhibit shot quality, capitalize on counterattacks, and buck the idea that possession control is needed to thrive.

Take New York's six-game defeat over Pittsburgh. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Penguins owned 58.92% of shot attempts at five-on-five but only 52.25% of high-danger chances, and they were outscored 18-12. One big reason was Ilya Sorokin, the 25-year-old rookie who authored a .943 save percentage (to Tristan Jarry's .888). Now, he'll encounter a formidable netminding foe in Tuukka Rask.

What's at stake: Beyond the question of how many runs Boston's thirtysomething core has left, how's this for a subplot: pending free agent Hall's quest for personal playoff success. The 11-year vet is drumming up something resembling momentum, if we ignore his woeful stint in Buffalo. He won his first career postseason series with Arizona last season (albeit in the bubbled play-in round) and scored twice to help the Bruins dispatch Washington in five games.

The Islanders want to build on the headway they've made under Trotz's command. They don't have a superstar on Alex Ovechkin's level, but the former Capitals coach's emphasis on team defense has powered the Isles to series victories three years running, including their surge to the 2020 Eastern Conference Final. They lost to Tampa Bay in six games that postseason, but a rematch in Round 3 or a trip to the Stanley Cup Final remains possible.

Boston's player to watch: Charlie McAvoy. If the Bruins are through to Round 3 by the time Norris Trophy finalists are announced on June 9, expect that their No. 1 defenseman dictated play. In the heavy minutes that McAvoy shouldered this year without Torey Krug or Zdeno Chara around, Boston outscored teams 50-32 at five-on-five, an elite figure. He assisted on all five of Boston's Round 1 power-play goals.

New York's player to watch: Josh Bailey. Brock Nelson's right-winger scored in double overtime against the Penguins and leads the Islanders in playoff assists and points (23 and 32 in 36 games) since Trotz's arrival. Mathew Barzal dazzles, but Bailey, Nelson, and Anthony Beauvillier are New York's safest bet to drive offense as a collective.

Central Division: Carolina vs. Tampa Bay

By the standings, the odds in this matchup tilt toward the Hurricanes, the divisional top seed whose defensive game is on par with Boston's and New York's. Spiritually, the reigning Stanley Cup champions have to be favored until a challenger unseats them.

Why not the Hurricanes? Nashville goalie Juuse Saros just pushed them to six overtime periods, but the 'Canes controlled 56.69% of five-on-five expected goals in the series, signaling good process. Sebastian Aho, Vincent Trocheck, and Jordan Staal each center a wicked Carolina forward line. One compelling battle to track this round: Norris Trophy aspirant Dougie Hamilton seeking to outplay Victor Hedman, 2020's Conn Smythe Trophy winner.

Carolina is deep, yet the Lightning remain stacked, and Nikita Kucherov dispelled against Florida the concern that he'd be slow to boot up following his return from hip surgery. Blame the Panthers' goalie carousel for conceding 22 goals in six games, but acknowledge Tampa's firepower, too. Eight forwards scored multiple first-round goals, including Steven Stamkos, the captain who saw only 2:47 of ice time during the Cup run.

What's at stake: The Bruins gave Carolina fits the past two postseasons, winning eight of nine games to stunt the Hurricanes' transition from up-and-comers to legit contenders. Ousting the Lightning would signify that this team has made the leap. Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, and Martin Necas are no longer playoff newcomers. Do any of them have a career performance in store?

Tampa Bay is gunning to become the Stanley Cup's second repeat victor this century, taking after Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017. Consider it a golden opportunity before the bill's due. Twelve Lightning players earn more than $4.4 million annually; the club contorted below the salary cap by stashing Kucherov ($9.5 million) on long-term injured reserve for the entire season. Tougher decisions loom this summer.

Carolina's player to watch: Alex Nedeljkovic. No one's taking the Calder Trophy from Kirill Kaprizov's mitts, but 25-year-old Nedeljkovic was a revelation in net in his first full NHL campaign. His save percentage in 23 appearances was .932, the best in the league among regular starters. Per Evolving Hockey, only Marc-Andre Fleury and Connor Hellebuyck topped his mark of 12.92 goals saved above expectation.

If he dominates the Lightning as he did in three starts during the season - Nedeljkovic stopped 75 of 78 shots and posted a shutout - then hockey will crown a new champ this year.

Tampa Bay's player to watch: Alex Killorn. The Lightning have nailed their share of first-round draft picks since the 2005 lockout - Stamkos, Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy - and unearthed gem after overlooked gem later in the process. Kucherov and Brayden Point are studs, while Ondrej Palat and Anthony Cirelli were inspired finds.

Teams like the Panthers lose hope when guys like Killorn, the 77th pick in 2007, snare four goals and four assists in a series - two fewer points than he contributed to Tampa Bay's entire 2020 Cup charge. Kucherov, Stamkos, and Point will inevitably get their points. Let Killorn score at will, and Carolina's in trouble.

West Division: Colorado vs. Vegas

Bitter: This matchup is worthy of the Cup Final, let alone the second round. Sweet: After Joel Kiviranta's Game 7 hat trick booked Dallas - not Colorado - a playoff date with Vegas last summer, at least these powerhouses finally are meeting.

Little separated Colorado and Vegas in the regular season, though the Avalanche's edge in regulation wins broke a tie for the Presidents' Trophy. Colorado was first in the NHL in goals for, third in goals against, and - accounting for goal differential and schedule strength - a close second in Hockey Reference's Simple Rating System. Vegas was third, first, and first in those categories, respectively.

One distinction: Colorado's 60.08 expected goals percentage was by far the league's top mark, according to Natural Stat Trick's data. Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Gabriel Landeskog menace defenses together, but what separates Colorado from, say, Connor McDavid's Oilers is influential forward depth, plus the terrific blue-line corps that Cale Makar headlines and Devon Toews has fortified.

Philipp Grubauer was a top-10 goalie this season by save percentage and goals saved above average; he let in a mere seven goals on 110 shots (.936) as Colorado swept the Blues in Round 1. Minnesota, the Golden Knights' first opponent, really distressed Vegas, but Fleury's .931 save percentage over seven games was almost as pristine.

Although Max Pacioretty sat out the postseason's first six games, Mark Stone and top-line fill-in Alex Tuch combined to burn the Wild for seven goals. Pacioretty scoring and playing 16:28 in Game 7 was a welcome sight, considering how sorely Vegas missed his point-per-game touch in two shutout defeats.

What's at stake: Recent history dictates that Colorado has more riding on this matchup. The Avalanche have the core, the ascendant young talent, and the team-friendly superstar contract - MacKinnon is signed at $6.3 million through 2023 - to achieve staying power and compete for Cups annually. But they've lost consecutive second-round Game 7s and haven't reached Round 3 since 2002.

It only took three years for the playoffs to thrill, devastate, and vex the NHL's 31st franchise. The Golden Knights made the 2018 final as expansion darlings, crashed epically in a first-round Game 7 in 2019, and got stoned by Anton Khudobin in last year's Western Conference Final. This is their last shot to hoist the Cup before the Seattle Kraken debut.

Colorado's players to watch: Andre Burakovsky and Makar. The MacKinnon line is Colorado's greatest edge in this and any matchup. If the club's next-best scorers can pressure Fleury and swing possession in the Avalanche's favor, that would offset Vegas' signature strengths: goaltending and offensive variety.

Burakovsky was serviceable for half a decade in Washington, but the second-line winger rounded into a marksman once he was dealt to the Avs in 2019. He would have challenged for 30 goals had 2020-21 been a full season. At any rate, he tallied a career-high 0.83 points per game (44 in 53).

Makar has aced each of his NHL tests, starting with his 2019 playoff baptism out of college. The Golden Knights held him to two points in six games this season, and they're relentless when they hit top gear. Watching Makar try to pick them apart in the postseason should be tremendous fun.

Vegas' players to watch: Stone and Alex Pietrangelo. No need to strain to identify these difference-makers. Stone, the NHL takeaways king, tied for sixth in the league in five-on-five scoring in the regular season. His 37 points in that phase of the game bested Rantanen's 35 and MacKinnon's 34.

If Stone is the most potent scorer in the series, pencil Vegas in as the West Division champ and Stanley Cup favorite. The subtext here: That would require slowing MacKinnon, the forward Pietrangelo and Alec Martinez faced the most this year.

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

Copyright © 2021 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.